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IS Claims Responsibility for Suicide Attack in Libya

September 11, 2018 6:20 PM

VOA News

A man stands outside the damaged headquarters of the national oil company after an attack by gunmen in Tripoli, Libya, Sept. 10, 2018. Officials said security forces of Libya's U.N.-backed government stormed the building after gunmen had earlier gone in,

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IS Claims Responsibility for Suicide Attack in Libya

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Islamic State on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on the Tripoli headquarters of the Libyan state oil company that occurred the day before, according to SITE, a U.S.-based intelligence group that monitors extremists.

Two staffers at the National Oil Corporation were killed and 10 were wounded. The three attackers were also killed.

A statement from Amaq, the IS news agency, said it targeted the "economic interests of the pro-Crusader governments of the tyrants of Libya."

The U.N. mission in Libya condemned what it called a "cowardly terrorist attack."

Libya has been in nonstop political and social turmoil since longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi was toppled and killed in 2011.

A rival government is jockeying for power with a U.N.-installed administration in Tripoli, which is struggling to assert its authority across the country.

Extremists, including Islamic State militants, claim to have a number of so-called "sleeper cells" inside Libya.